Increasing potassium in our diets as well as cutting down on salt will reduce blood pressure levels and the risk of stroke, research in the British Medical Journal suggests. One study review found that eating an extra two to three servings of fruit or vegetables per day - which are high in potassium - was beneficial. A lower salt intake would increase the benefits further, researchers said.

A stroke charity said a healthy diet was key to keeping stroke risk down. While the increase of potassium in diets was found to have a positive effect on blood pressure, it was also discovered to have no adverse effects on kidney function or hormone levels, the research concluded. As a result, the World Health Organisation has issued its first guidelines on potassium intake, recommending that adults should consume more than 4g of potassium (or 90 to 100mmol) per day.

The BMJ study on the effects of potassium intake, produced by scientists from the UN World Food Programme, Imperial College London and Warwick Medical School, among others, looked at 22 controlled trials and another 11 studies involving more than 128,000 healthy participants.......

When you go and look at our habits of fast-food....just one episode of eating out is an entire day’s worth of sodium. If you really wanted to change your life while in your forties...limit yourself to one fast-food episode a month....manage at least one piece a fruit a day....and cut out all sodas. You’d probably add five more years onto your life.

Not just fast food. Seems to me that all restaurants add too much salt and high sodium ingredients to their meals. Olive Garden, for example. Last I looked, there was nothing on the menu under 800 mg. of sodium. If you ask at these restaurants to have the chef not add salt to your food, you are told the meals are prepared according to a set recipe from which no deviation is permitted.

I guess some folks react badly to salt and eggs, but a good many of us could thrive on a daily dose of salted hard boiled eggs for breakfast. If they want to improve our health, cut back on most of the "healthy" low-fat, artificial sweetener, over-loaded soy products that they tout as health foods and exercise. The prepackaged "convenience" foods also add a lot of extra things that most of us do not need and many cannot tolerate. Many folks of the times consider nuking a TV dinner to be cooking...

8
posted on 04/06/2013 4:47:49 AM PDT
by trebb
(Where in the the hell has my country gone?)

“However, I do remember reading an article that said that salt didnt have much to do with high blood pressure. Who knows what to believe anymore.”

Some people are more salt-sensitive than others. This occurs in other mammals as well. For example, the Dahl Salt-sensitive rat develops very high blood pressure on a high-salt diet, but the Dahl salt-resistant rat does not. Control of blood pressure is complex, and although several specific causes for high blood pressure in humans have been identified, the mechanisms causing high blood pressure in most people remain unclear.

While nut is in their name, peanuts are in fact legumes. Peanuts actually grow underground, as opposed to nuts like walnuts, almonds, etc. that grow on trees (and are sometimes referred to as "tree nuts").

Yes, I learned around 5th grade that peanuts are legumes — Lord only knows what they learn in 5th grade now. But peanuts do not, apparently, fall into the category of pulses, as the definition I found says the legumes referred to as “pulses” grow in pods.

That being said, if you really want more potassium in your diet, get a shaker of Morton salt substitute.

This is because supplements are usually limited to about 99mg of potassium, because otherwise they would be too big to swallow. Typically, a healthy adult person needs about 4,700mg a day (via WebMD), so a 99mg dose is tiny.

However, 1/4 tsp of Morton salt substitute contains 610mg of potassium, which is about 17% US RDA.

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